Better Than Fencing Alone

After I let Meg go home with Pete, I made the drive from Indy to Culver
for the St. Valentine’s Massacre Fencing Tournament. Purdue was just
wrapping up because NO FOILISTS FROM PURDUE SHOWED UP… AGAIN. WTF?
Who doesn’t fence at open events like this??? Anyway the cool Purdue
people were there and so was Paul G, former coach. I tanked it in the
pools, lost 4 won two. Paul told me I was flat-footed, that I was stuck
with coach’s feet and that I needed to make better attacks with my
point.

The first DE I danced my feet a little better, but a weapon died. I won
because my opponent couldn’t land a flick and he insisted upon flicking
for every touch. He got so frustrated too. He could have beaten me if
he wanted to. Then I was up against a guy I lost to in the pools 0-5. I
knew after that pool bout I’d see him in the DE’s and sure enough there
we were. Paul was there and it was good because I really needed some
encouragement and Purdue was long gone. My second weapon died and the
score was 3-8 him. I was ready to forfeit because there was no way I
was gonna beat him, but Paul dug up some weapons from somewhere and we
were back in business. Final score 6-15 after I took a flick to the back
of the head. It was all flicks. He would have had nothing on the new
timings. *shrug* But my feet were better and I was fencing cleaner.
Paul told me I needed to work on my compound reposts, which is very
true. So now I’ve got direction and I know I need to kick up my
footwork back at the club. I finished 15 out of 26 foilists.

I guess I wanted to write because I feel like I’ve been fencing way
below my ability all year. I’m a C ranked foilists and I can fence that
well, but something isn’t right. I place in the middle instead of top
8, I lose to people I know I can beat, to people who have one trick and
I can see it but can’t stop it. I should be doing better in
competitions and I’m not. This week: find out what gives.

The ratings are a mess now in the midwest thanks to things like Friday Night Fencing and other rating factories. You have mediocre fencers walking around with B’s and then when a real tournament comes up they get knocked out early on and never make it to the top 8 or 16 to make the event be as highly rated as it should be. So what could be a B1 or B2 event often ends up being a C1 or D1 because people are over rated.

Interesting… we don’t really have any ratings factory tournaments. Fencing down here is comparatively sparse, but there’s a few more clubs with actual decent (or better) coaches. Based on what I’ve seen, the ratings here would all be offset one from up there (a C here would be a B there, etc).